The Aegist

[zataz]

Firstly it's not a personal argument, I don't play Paladin. I usually make arguments I think are in the best interests of the game and why people play it (because I want it to continue as long as possible)

Lets say there was a Marathon race and everyone trained for months to participate, then people were awarded $ and obtained a gold, silver and bronze medal for 1-3 winning slots.

Then everyone got a participation gold medal that looked almost identical to the winning gold medal.

Do you think that would undermine the win in the eyes of the gold, silver and bronze medal winners as everyone else has the gold medals around their necks? do you think it might mean less participants next year?

If you aren't sure, why risk it at all?

It's a totally worthless login item that might hurt the game, so either why do it at all or change it to look less like aegis with color swaps to rectify the potential issues.

I respect your point of view that said and maybe this is just me. I don't care what something looks like or what looks like it if something gives me a advantage in fighting mobs I want it. I don't care what others have or don't have. I take care of the people who take care of me. Also to make my point. what does the gold medel do for me that the silver can't?
Do I run faster? Jump farther? Aegis has a clear advantage over other shields. What will you say if the new shield ends up replacing aegis like it did ochain? I mean I should complain cause my actual hard work was pushed aside but you know what I'm making the new shield so it's w/e

[Pixela]

A successful mmorpg is more about understanding human psychology and human instinctive behavior in groups than anything else.

If you have 1000 people on a server, and one of them works hard and achieves some goal and is then rewarded with a visual trophy for that effort they will feel good because our lizard brains reward us for increasing our status in groups with dopamine. In-turn, others will want to emulate you, again becasue of your visibly higher status and as such this simple trophy rewards you and encourages others to engage with the achievement system across the board. aka visible reward is very important.

Increased STATS are good in your dungeon groups because you perform better among your direct peers, but visual rewards show the entire community you walk past that you put the effort in and have built a higher status character and it makes you feel happier. (inb4 I don't care about that cause I'm an individual! we all do, it's how all of our brains work at a fundamental level whether you like it or not. It is no different than being happy when you're with friends, eating a nice meal or other similar action your brain perceives as being good for you and rewards you for those actions with dopamine)

If you give everyone that same visual trophy for no effort you are disincentivizing working on things that increase your status in a community, which is a massive part of why people play FF11.

Even if there are better status building trophies now you're still a) undermining the core principle of the effort and reward system in a sub conscious manner with the most famous REMA in the game - from a developer and b) ripping the floor out from under mid status players who put a lot of effort (for them) to get it and will never get the high status items you have (escutcheons etc).

This is far less important in a game like FF14 because much of the status in that game is built around cash shop purchases and they did that by design to sell more of them (and they surely do), FF11 status is almost exclusively obtained from effort because it came out before cash shops were a widely accepted thing. This is why players get so mad about bots, mercs or gil buying. Because it bypasses the work for reward system of the game with real world shortcuts and undermines their accomplishments.

As such, if you give away an extremely well known and desired trophy for free to everyone you are undermining a core foundation of the game, in a very visible way in the minds of the players and this is really stupid, when it's a worthless login item.

All the stuff above is why I personally considered Odyssey gear to be badly designed, becasue it made the visual trophy fairly easy to get and didn't add any extra visual reward like a red light on the chest such as VW bodies or something for maxing it. Doing this would of made it far more desired to max across the board. However that pales in comparison to this login item.

Added to this, they are making the stupid joke item be so utterly widespread that everyone will automatically assume you wearing a real Aegis are actually just wearing the joke one so not only will it have no value but will instantly be perceived as a stupid joke item.

This is one of the most stupid things I've seen a developer do and why I and others have been trying so hard to get him to at the bare minimum change the color of the shield.

[Haldarn]

I mean I'm hyper-casual and unfocussed and I have an afterglow relic and hundreds of millions in the bank (gobbie box keeps chucking out these 140mil belts...). It'd probably take me a whole weekend to get an Aegis by the sounds, but I cba just yet because I'm farming Ferine Seals for BST that I don't play.


Does anyone think that there's a link between RA Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy, what with Aegis/Aegist being similarly named to Wulfgar's Aegis Fang and his best mate Regis the halfling having the same name as the +1 version? Or sheer coincidence?

SLASH THREAD

[Pixela]

The thread was never to win the argument, this is something that I thought was genuinely bad for the game. Even matsui pulled a weird face when he found out they added an april fools item to the game in the digest.

It's sad he didn't listen, and I have the feeling this is just the begging since they added a replica storage slip now.

[Alhanelem]

The thread was never to win the argument, this is something that I thought was genuinely bad for the game.

It's a cosmetic item. It is no more bad for the game than any other cosmetic item. It is clearly identifiable and distinguishable from the real items. No person with any intelligence or observation skills at all is going to be confused, nor think less or more of a player for having or not having this vanity item.

This is being massively overblown by its detractors.

[Immortal]

It's a cosmetic item. It is no more bad for the game than any other cosmetic item. It is clearly identifiable and distinguishable from the real items. No person with any intelligence or observation skills at all is going to be confused, nor think less or more of a player for having or not having this vanity item.

This is being massively overblown by its detractors.

Says you, in your personal opinion. This is not fact, this is not true for everyone.

[Alhanelem]

Says you, in your personal opinion. This is not fact, this is not true for everyone.

It iis my opinion that this is in fact fact, and true for everyone. Being offended by someone having this item, or confusing it for something else (particularly after not thinking to check considering anyone debating this, posessing the item or aegis or the upgraded item knows of its existence) can be explained by nothing less than being deliberately oblivious/ignorant.

You yourself are aware of these things and thus cannot logically argue that this is harmful in any way.

I already explained earlier: I know full well and have had personal experience with a promised exclusive or special thing no longer being such. This is not in any way that kind of situation, and making it out to be one when it in fact is not is at best disingenuous.

I possesss a number of exclusive mounts and armor sets from The Feast ranked play in FFXIV over a dozen seasons prior to its removal. Since then, similar looking items that are not the same items have been made available to people who never participated in this. I have no problem with it, because I know the thing they have is not the same as the thing that I have, and was not obtained in the same way with the same effort. This is no different. And as others have said probably multiple times at this point, Aegis is already so common that this argument is pretty much moot in the first place. It's not a special accomplishment and even arguing that it's minimized by a similar looking vanity item is silly because it already doesn't amount to much. Why weren't you and the others in an uproar when relics got easier to obtain? That was a lot more "minimizing of an accomplishment" than this fake vanity clone could ever hope to be. Frankly I'm stunned that this argument is even taking place, it is that trivial.

[Sp1cyryan]

Says you, in your personal opinion. This is not fact, this is not true for everyone.

The fact you feel this strongly about a vanity item is concerning.

[Immortal]

You are trying to exert your opinion as fact, it is not. This was brought to the attention of the devs from people who dislike it. You've said your piece so now you are just upping your post count essentially.

[Immortal]

You've changed your post like 50 times and still are stating your opinion again, lol.